Practical Jokes PG6

Reminds me of when I was in first year at UVIC. At that time, punch-cards were used for programming still (They added terminals the year after I left). The rectangular cardboard confetti had many uses :-) That stuff was hard to get off of clothes, out of your hair, etc. One friend of mine decided to collect the stuff, so every day he would go around and empty the confetti >from the punch machines. At a party he was going around tossing the stuff at people and laughing as they tried to get it out of their clothes (it sure itches if you get it in your clothes!). He had collected a whole paper shopping bag full - one of the big ones. When he got around to me I reached out and whacked the bag hard on the bottom as he was reaching in to get another handfull. Well he was looking down into the bag and had his mouth open. The confetti exploded upwards into his face and mouth. We were practically rolling around on the floor watching him trying to clean the stuff out of his mouth an off his tongue. A few days later he got me back by collecting more and dumping it on my car, into the ventilation inlets. To this day years after he did this, an occasional rectangular cardboard piece of confetti will float up out of the ventilation system every time you turn on the fan/heater.

Here are two of my favorites (which I've never yet performed: maybe I'm just not spiteful enough.)

Prickly pear cacti have two kinds of spines: large ones and tiny reddish hairs that are incredibly irritating. Gather the tiny ones, and distribute them into the clothing of someone you detest, perhaps the underwear. They will probably be noticed too late. Caveat: this should make the clothes permanently unusable.

Collect an engorged tick from a dog, and keep it until it produces an egg mass. Hide the egg mass at a spot where the victim sits. Several hundred tiny "seed ticks" will patiently wait their opportunity to swarm over the first warm-blooded creature available. They are too small to easily pick off, and just large enough to see. (This happened [by accident] to me in Georgia this summer. I wasn't disturbed much, but then I study ticks and mites for fun.)

Don't make an enemy of an imaginative biologist.

Speaking of practical jokes, my wife pulled one several years ago...

For my wife's birthday several years ago, some people at the law office where she works hired a male belly dancer to entertain her. She swore sweet revenge. Six months later, the instigator of the belly dancer incident had her birthday. My wife arranged for the single brother of another secretary to meet the instigator for lunch, etc. The instigator didn't know the brother before this, so it looked like someone had hired an escort service for her to help celebrate her birthday. The joke, however, backfired. The secretary and the single brother are now married. At the wedding, held at a large and famous Chicago hotel, a gorilla handed out bannanas to the guests, courtesy of my spouse.

This reminds me of something I saw at our residence a couple of terms ago. Outside one of the houses was an entire bedroom suite! (bed, desk, chair, the whole bit - even the bed was made!) I don't know exactly from which dorm it came from or whodunnit but I imagine somebody was not too happy!

My favorites:

Dump a whole bottle of detergent into the toilet tank. This produces great billowing suds out of the bowl on first flush. Especially great if first flusher is sitting at the time.

Use a clip lead to connect the brake light switch to the horn relay on the targets car. Every time they step on the brake the horn blows. It's amazing how many people can't associate the horn blowing with using the brake. They just report that the horn blows at random times. This is especially useful joke to watch in parking lots when work lets out.

Carefully pick up sleeping targets bed and set it on four coke bottles. When target rolls over or makes any significant move bed will crash 6 inches to the floor and there will be bottles rolling all over the place but not a soul in sight.

Steal a banana from targets lunch. Use large sewing needle to pierce skin at seam and move needle back and forth to "cut" banana in half. Continue doing this along the seam and banana will be sliced when peeled by target.

Saran wrap on reading glasses that have been left on desk is good. Trimming at edge of lens is hard but effect is great. Not usually noticed when first picked up but optical quality of saran is spectacularly bad.

I know of a variation of the fake workmen digging the street that worked well. In the original (very risky) you masquerade as real workmen and dig a hole in the street and leave. When this was first done in NY in the fifties it was days before anybody realized something was wrong and traffic was a disaster until the street department patched the hole. In the variation, the jokers observed real workmen digging the street and reported to the police that college students were again digging up the street as a joke. The police thanked the tipster and headed for the dig. In the meantime the jokers approached the workmen and toldthem that the college had freshmen dressed up as cops as part of fraternity initiation and that they would be around soon to give the workmen a hard time. The workmen thought this was great and agreed to give the "cops" a hard time back. It was a long time before this mess was sorted out. (this was my all time favorite practical joke)

Another idea that I couldn't perfect might be of interest. I got one of the air freshener gadgets that had a battery operated timer that causes a brief push on a self-contained can of air freshener every 10 minutes. I guess you leave this thing in the bathroom and get a brief pssssst of freshener every ten minutes. Anyhow, I tried to change the can of air freshener (which is indeed replacable) with a freon horn. Unfortunately the freon horns sold for emergency use in boats etc. have a different cap on top that I could not adapt to the freshener. If you could make this work you could plant this thing in somebodies shrubs or cellar or warehouse... or office.

This supposedly happened a bunch of years ago, when deposit slips imprinted with one's account number were becoming available, but banks still had trays with generic deposit slips for their customers' convenience.

This gentleman opens an account, deposits a few thousand dollars. He then leaves _his_own_ deposit slips in the counter slots in various branches. A few days before next month's statements appear, he goes in, checks his balance, withdraws one hundred eighty thousand dollars in cash, and disappears. Seems the system credited his account with deposits that others made (seemingly to their accounts) using his slips.

And one that doesn't involve banks, but allegedly happened...

College student returns to his room to find a bucket of water amateurishly balanced above the door, ready to fall on him when he opens the door. So he lifts down the bucket and empties it into his sink.

Too bad the perpetrators also removed the drain pipe from the sink.

In the last few hours before the Corps of Cadets dorms closed for Christmas break, someone led a horse into a departed friend's room and shot it. When the dorms reopened a month later, the smell was so fierce that the entire wing of the building was unusable.

These were told to me by a friend who once attended Devry Inst. in Arizona (a tech. school for electronics types). Three favorite practical jokes were:

1. The access to the supply room (to obtain lab materials) was via a Dutch door (two-piece job where either top or bottom could be opened independently), where the top half was left open so students could lean over and request supplies. The lab grunts wired a thin filament wire to a power supply and strung it across the top of the bottom portion of the door. Normal instincts of students led them to lean or place hands there while waiting for materials, and were met with a small yet satisfying jolt.

2. This one I've heard of from various sources. Charge up a bell-type capacitor and tape the leads in such a way that they are almost but not quite touching. Call to the victim with a rousing "Here, catch!" and lob the cap to them. When they catch, the slight squeezing pressure will connect the leads and the capacitor will pop. (VARIATION: Leave 'loaded' cap on chair for them to sit on)

3. The most common labs involved circuit design and troubleshooting, and students were forever wary as they applied power to a new circuit for the first time. My friend's prank involved running some thin hollow plastic flex tubing from his lab station to a point below and behind the victim's station. He would then light up a cigarette and wait. As soon as the victim applied power to his circuit, he would blow ciggie smoke into his end of the tube. Within a few seconds, victim would see smoke rising from his board and cut power. He would examine board, find no trouble, and fire it up again. Soon smoke would appear ... this can be stretched out for a good long time, or until he sees the tubing.

Try this one out sometime. While the victim is asleep carefully put Vaseline between his/her toes. What you will obeserve is the person's toes starting to wiggle. The apparent mechanism is that when your toes start slipping against each other, your mind insists on making them slip and slide more and more. The upshot of this is that the part of the mind that's supposed to be getting rest is busy moving toes. The victim wakes up having had no sleep at all.

How 'bout this: if the victim uses Head 'n Shoulders or Selsun Blue shampoo, and a few drops of methylene blue (available in pet stores) to a FULL bottle. Over time (if the victim is fair-haired), you will notice their hair turning blue, as methylene blue stains all organic material.

Also writing things on someone's back with indellible ink is pretty good. Use your imagination. "Laugh, but don't tell me about it." is a pretty good one.

Get a group of people to chip in 1 or 2 bucks, and bet the victim the collected sum that he or she can't put a cue ball in his/her mouth. Hint: cue balls go in, but they don't come out. In fact, medical science has developped a tool to aid in the removal of cue balls.

Take doors. Just take them off the hinges and put them somewhere else.

Another paper punch-hole trick that is even better is to take a plastic 35mm film canister, paper punch-holes and a can of freeze spray (at fine electronics stores everywhere). Fill the film canister with about 1/4" of freeze spray then add punch-holes until the film canister is at least half full, replace the lid on the canister, set the canister on a desk or shelf and then wait for the fun. The neat thing is that when the canister pops it shoots paper all over the area (sort of like a party 8-)). Before you try this with the con- fetti, experiment with just the freeze spray and canister, different amounts of liquid causes it to pop at different times. I know one person who filled one of those blue solder extractor bulbs half full of freeze spray, sealed the end and put it under his bench at work, he thought it might make a pretty good pop and after 30 minutes had completely forgotten about it. It went off about ten minutes later and could be heard all over the building (he later told everyone that a power supply had blown). Bubble pack behind the wheels of an occupied chair also causes some fun when the unsuspecting person rolls back.

Actually I'd rather hear mind game type jokes which are a lot more fun. ex: Bet some one they can't eat a slice of bread in less than a minute. Conditions are, nothing on the bread and nothing with the bread (like water). There are people who can win the bet, but watching them suffer is worth loosing, and I have won more money than I have lost.

Back when I was in high school a friend of mine, Robert, hurt his back while rolling his car and had to wear a plaster cast around his torso, from just under his armpits to a few inches below the navel. When he wore a jacket it was impossible to tell he had on a body cast. Now, for maximum effect you have to picture Robert. He was a tall beanpole with hair down to his butt (a scraggly beard, John Lennon type glasses with blue tinted lenses, and old clothes. One day we decide to go on a picnic at a local park. So here we have 4 hippies in a park surrounded by families, when Robert grabs a large butcher knife, jumps up, yells 'GODDAMN IT I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE', and plunges the knife into his chest. This was followed by some very dramatic histronics as he fell to the ground, ending up on his back with the knife sticking up in the air. Well, the three of us knew the knife was really in the cast, not his chest, so we double up laughing as these families are looking on in shock. I'll never forget some of the looks on those people's faces.

Good ol Ray decides to do Robert one better. He grabs the picnic basket, yells 'lets go!', and runs off to the van. Naturally we followed, leaving Robert laying on the ground with the knife sticking up. Boy, this really got them families into shock! Robert realizes he's suddenly all alone and tries to get up and run after us. If you want to see something funny sometime watch someone with 50 pounds of plaster wrapped around their chest, who can't bend at the waist, try to get up unassisted off their backs. Then picture this person trying to run after a van, in which his 3 buddies are driving off. Remember, Robert still has this knife sticking out of his chest. Boy, them families didn't know what the hell was going on.

Anyway, we went down the road 100 yards or so, just enough to scare the crap out of Robert, and stopped to let him get in the van. I still wonder what some of those families thought of that episode.

I became a somewhat involved spectator in a similar incident... The biology teacher at my high school, Mr. Evans, was an incurable wit. He was the one teacher everybody liked. He was the one who made sure that we dissected Ascaris worms (long white stomach worms) the same day the lunch room served spaghetti. One day, he fished out a four-foot preserved boa constrictor and laid it on the floor just inside the biology lab door. Then he put a preserved frog in its mouth. Then he stood by the door waiting for class to start, watching students' reactions as they opened the door. I had the misfortune to arrive right behind one of the more excitable girls. (click.) (door opens) AAAAAAAAAAAAK! She ran right over me!

Mr. Evans related tales of his college days. He said one of his professors was a real joker (by HIS standards!) who let his pet tarantula roam loose in the room during class. You could track its progress by watching people pick up their feet. He made some ammonium tri-iodide and painted it on the floor before class. People walk in. BANG! POP! POW! When you pick up one foot, you have to put the other one down. BAM!

I always wanted to put some inside the school bell. Ding-BOOM!

Switch the "MEN" and "WOMEN" signs on a pair of public bathrooms while they're occupied. Great at airports, hotels, and bars.

You can do this to a business associate whom you think is a jerk:

Get a few copies of his business card. Hopefully, it has his home phone number on it. Go to your local red-light district and pass them out to the girls (or guys) saying "Call me some time."

This is most effective if he has a family. If he is single, he may want to thank you.

My father loves to tell of the builder he knows who had to evict some guy >from one of his rental houses. It seems the renter left his pet in the master bedroom. A duck with lots of food and water... The builder didn't get around to checking out the house for about a week. Yech. Needless to say, the not only the carpet needed replacement, but the sub-floor also.

Apparently there is a well-known story in the television industry about the early days, when parts were scarce and 'friendly competition' was just be- ginning between the networks. There was going to be an important speech by someone important, probably President Eisenhower or someone of that stature. Naturally, all (both?) of the networks wanted to cover this speech. But on the day of the speech, the tube in NBC's camera went dead. There was no hope to order a replacement in time, so the NBC brass called the CBS brass to ask if they could borrow a tube until they could get a replacement (maybe they borrowed a whole camera, I don't know). At any rate, the good-natured guys at CBS said sure, they would deliver a tube to them in plenty of time for the speech.

Well they DID loan NBC a tube, but not before setting it up in a camera and focusing it on the brightly lit door to the men's room. To understand what happened, you must realize that these early "image-orthicon" tubes were ex- tremely sensitive. So sensitive in fact, that a bright unchanging image would "burn-in" to the face of the tube and remain for hours, or even permanently if the damage was severe enough. So to make a long story even longer, when NBC brodcasted the speech, the president appeared with "MEN" emblazoned across his forehead. Of course they discovered it much too late to do anything about it (this was live TV, folks).

(This was a story I heard from someone who worked at a CBS affiliate TV station and may or may not be true, or the networks involved may be wrong.)

A little gentler trick that a co-worker pulled up here a few years ago depended on the sound module from one of those dolls that cries unless you rock it back and forth. He fastened it to the bottom of someone's chair. The someone comes and sits down, and starts working on his terminal. As he gets into it, this vague "wa-wa" noise starts up from some unidentifiable direction. The victim looks around (moving the chair) and the crying stops. Oh, well, who cares. Back to work. A little later, the crying starts up again. This one was good for several minutes.

Oh yes, someone mentioned freon bombs. Things can get hairy with those around a power supply design group. And the following is a good way to make a switcher designer an enemy for life - or a few days, at least:

Now for a *harmless* practical joke. My favorite telephone gag is to call someone at random, and with an official tone rattle off this warning before they can interrupt:

"This is the telephone company calling. There is some trouble with your line. Please do not answer any calls for the next five minutes or the person on the other end may be electrocuted. Thank you."

Hang up, and wait about two minutes. Call them back. When they answer, just scream "AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" and hang up.

My freshman year we had a trick that went around my old dorm. Someone would put shaving cream on a phone receiver and a confederate would call. The victim would then answer the phone and sploosh the shaving cream into his ear. Worked 90% of the time.

One kid in particular got hit hard. Once a day for two weeks. Even when no one suspicious was around. It became a challenge to see how many times he could be had. One day he was in another part of the dorm, where the craze to get your roommate with the trick had just begun. The kid came into the room of a mutual friend totally depressed about having been had *so* many times. He proceeded to demonstrate to everyone in the room what would happen: "The phone would ring and I would pick it up like this"-- he picks up the phone and -- sploosh: gets it again! The phone had been set up for my friend's roommate seconds before the kid had entered.

I start to laugh when ever I think about this one... A friend who works at a company I will all inhel for lack of a better name, loves to tell this story about "Ralph" (names changed to protect the guilty).

Being in the electronics industry, TAK-PAK is very common (for you S/W types, tak-pak is thick super glue that comes with a bottle of 'accelerator' that makes it stick VERY fast). It was decided to wait until Ralph was far enough away that it would be a long run to phone, but he would make it if he was quick. The 'handle' was then tak-pak'ed to the little white buttons on top of the phone. The call was placed. Ralph goes running down the hall full steam ahead, leaps for the phone, and snatched it off the desk! The hole thing. Now, he hased to try to answer the thing only he can't. And if he sets it down it hangs up!

Practical Joke at a party.

Take a sheet of cardboard or a throw away magazine, form a cone with it. Take the cone, a coin, and a liquid refreshment (water causes least damage) in a bottle or a cup, of course you will be pretending its your drink. Challenge the victim (bet a sum), that they can not drop the coin, placed on their forehead, with their eyes closed, into the top of the cone shoved into their pants at the waist within so many tries. To prove that it is possible, demonstrate the procedure a few times, you'll be supprised that it is possible. (practice before hand) When the victim tries it, as soon as the eyes close, pour the liquid down the cone.